Trails from the Frontier

Rashid has spent 25 years piecing his story together to produce this book. He also explains how Azhar Masood and Hafez Sayed acted as links between Al Qaeda and the terrorists operating in Kashmir to tap into international expertise and carry the war against Kashmir to other parts of India, killing hundreds of Indian civilians, quite often in Muslim localities.

Rashid’s story begins with the World Trade Center attack, but gets into stride describing the 2003-4 period when a distracted US lost its way in Iran and let Afghanistan’s future be captured by extremists supported by the Pakistan Army acting in defiance of America’s struggle to assist Hamid Karzai in governing his war-torn country. Indian state institutions hardly figure in the book.

There are some heroic personalities and textbook bad guys. There is Ahmed Shah Masood, a fierce but gentleman warrior, doting father and the best general to fight the Russians; and there is Abdul Haq, a 43-year-old charismatic Pathan who entered Afghanistan on a white horse to urge all Afghans to unite behind the king and was captured, tortured and killed by the Taliban. There is also Karzai who arrived in Kabul with four assistants, and when asked about his army, said, “All you Afghans are my army.”

Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah are figures familiar to Indian readers. They control all districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and have enforced Sharia in three more districts of the North-West Frontier Province. Rashid’s case is that Al Qaeda could be wiped out but for the sanctuary provided by the Pakistan Taliban who also provide refuge for the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistan Taliban are protected by the Pakistan Army who periodically make humiliating peace deals to recover abducted troops.

When the author of a book explains that “this book is about…”, it is often a great help to the reviewer. But in this case one cannot agree with Rashid when he writes, “This book is about American failure to secure the region after 9/11 and to carry out nation building.” The Americans have their own country to run. The chaos in both Pakistan and Afghanistan was created by Islamabad, and Rashid’s attempts to pass the blame on to the Americans mars the flow of logic in an otherwise brilliant book.